Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna have introduced new legislation aimed at taxing the wealth of billionaires in the United States. The Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act would create a 5% annual wealth tax on the 938 billionaires in America, who collectively hold $8.2 trillion in assets.
According to Senator Sanders, "At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, this legislation demands that the billionaire class in America finally pay their fair share of taxes so that we can create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%. We can no longer tolerate a corrupt tax code that enables billionaires to pay a lower tax rate than the average worker. In a democratic society, we cannot tolerate 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck — struggling to pay for housing, food and health care — while 938 billionaires have become $1.5 trillion richer. We cannot continue a trend in which, over the past 50 years, $79 trillion in wealth in our country has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. Enough is enough. Billionaires cannot have it all. It is time to enact a wealth tax on billionaires and use this revenue to address some of the major crises facing working families, the children, the elderly, the sick and the most vulnerable."
Representative Khanna added, "We have a deep economic divide in this country. On one side, places like Silicon Valley are generating extreme wealth. On the other side, families are struggling to cover the cost of health care, housing, and basic needs. We can tax billionaires a modest amount to make sure everyone has a fair chance while keeping our innovative engine. That is why I am proud to join Senator Bernie Sanders to lead the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act."
The proposed bill would not affect individuals with less than $1 billion in net worth. An analysis by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman estimates that it could generate $4.4 trillion over ten years.
Revenue from this tax would be used for several initiatives:
- A direct payment of $3,000 per person for households earning $150,000 or less
- Reversing Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts previously estimated to cause over 50,000 unnecessary deaths
- Expanding Medicare coverage for dental, vision and hearing
- Building or preserving more than seven million affordable homes
- Capping family childcare expenses at no more than 7% of income
- Setting a minimum annual salary of $60,000 for public school teachers
- Expanding Medicaid home health care
Under this legislation’s provisions: Elon Musk would owe about $42 billion; Mark Zuckerberg around $11 billion; Jeff Bezos approximately $11 billion.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), where Sanders serves as Ranking Member during this Congress session while Bill Cassidy serves as chair according to its official website, oversees legislative efforts related to public health policy and worker rights across federal agencies such as FDA and NIH (source). The committee also influences regulations affecting education nationwide (source) and provides oversight on laws impacting labor standards (source).
Further details about the bill text and supporting analyses are available online.
